Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday October 03, 2011 @10:58AM
from the let-the-experiments-begin dept.

twoheadedboy writes "The UK Government has made a big commitment to the development of the 'wonder material' graphene, the most likely candidate to replace silicon in computing chips in the future. A £50 million Graphene Global Research and Technology Hub was announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. It is hoped the facility will help commercialize graphene. The University of Manchester, where the material was discovered, welcomed the announcement and will be one of the possible locations of the hub. Right now, universities will be getting ready to apply for their chance to host the graphene hub."

I think that when people hear £50m they think it's basically bottomless money with which we can fulfill any scientific fantasy. But think about it this way: There are London mansions that cost more - without staff, equipment, operating costs, or anything else that actually produces science. Granted, Manchester is a cheaper market. Still, £50m is pretty small potatoes by the standards of big science.

You do know that sheets of graphene can be stacked, and that stacking them increases their strength thanks to aptly named stacking forces that act between parallel aromatic systems? It isn't limited to a single flat sheet.

One big failing with the idea of a space elevator. Do you know what a guitar string is and how it works, now consider one kilometres and under enormous tension, definitely not good, good, good, vibrations. It would be interesting to see how destructive those resonant effects on that scale would be though.

the government is operating almost literally on a month-to-month basis, just barely avoiding financial default and shutdown. Its house majority a collection of pot-bellied reactionary bureaucrats who dismiss everything from climate science to alternative energy and evolution.

Heh, that made me chuckle. What should the icon be, though? A double decker bus, a pint of real ale, a cup of tea and a cigarette? I'm struggling here to think of a symbol that represents all of us Brittanites.

The month to month this is just politics. It'll be wrapped up in thirteen months. At the rate we are going that is only four to five last minute averted government shutdowns. By time there are elections it is going to be overwhelmingly one sided for someone.

It also looks like he's got some good ideas about how to run an economy, which is a nice change from the last couple of chancellors we've had. As much as I hate Tory policy you can't deny that they know how to make a healthy economy, and right now that's what we need.

Meh. The government is hardly in trouble. A cut here or a cut there and we can throw a billion dollars at graphene research too. It's convincing the distinguished and respected senators where to make those cuts -- therein lies the problem.

Nice investment for the future. A bigger investment would be to find replacements for the materials the world has become so reliant on China for. Maybe some other AAA country will focus their attention in that direction.